


For Want of a Nail

by vashiane



Series: Hydaelyn's Daughters [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Patch 2.0: A Realm Reborn Spoilers, Sickfic, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-17 23:07:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15472137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vashiane/pseuds/vashiane
Summary: So a Warrior was almost lost — all for the want of a few hours' rest months before.(Or, the moment Lucina was injured in a battle, and Thancred takes the blame for it.)





	For Want of a Nail

**Author's Note:**

> [slaps the top of fic] This bad boy can fit so much self-indulgence in it.
> 
> Really, though, welcome to my dumping grounds for all of my FFXIV headcanons and stories, because I have... a lot of them. In such a short amount of time too, and for once I'm actually inspired to write them all out. I know, right? Incredible. 
> 
> While this is kind of a weird place to start because it's after ARR's Ifrit Hard trial and... well... [gestures to the entire rest of ARR and all that lore], but I'll get there, even if I have to scramble stuff around a lot once I start adding to the verse.
> 
> I will burn that bridge when I cross it.
> 
>  **Edit 1** : Added a Body Horror/Graphic Depictions of Violence tag upon request for a particular paragraph approximately halfway through. Mind the new tagging in case you’re disturbed/triggered by such content. ❤️
> 
>  **Edit 2** : I touched up a lot of the dialogue to make it more in-line with the dialogue found in the game proper. Contextually, the dialogue hasn't changed, it's just written in a more accurate fashion. I admit, I jumped from Modern Millennial Teen Slang to... (gestures at this) with little thought, and it shows.

He wishes he had gone with her.

 

Damn the Ascians for leaving him in this fragile, fragmented state, with physical wounds that have yet to lose their dull aches and mental wounds that may ever remain open and gaping. They, like any actual wound, leave him vulnerable to infection, to the thrall of a primal’s call, and it’s these wounds that keep him here, in the Rising Stones, while their Warriors of Light challenge the reawakened threat.

 

It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. What good is an eikon-slayer who cannot slay eikons?

 

The feeling only swells further in his chest when he thinks about the mission taken today — the reemergence of the primal he was supposed to assist with before but was too late to do so. The gnawing guilt of leaving her alone to face something foreign to her, something she didn’t even know she was safe from, has only finally faded, replaced by newer guilts, but he feels it clawing from its grave in the pit of his stomach. It makes him nauseous. He wishes the ground would swallow him.

 

“Thancred?” Minfilia’s voice cuts through the crashing waves of thoughts, and he turns to her with a manufactured smile, eyebrows raised in curiosity, taking note of the concern in her eyes. For what? What would trouble her so?

 

“Did you not hear me ask your opinion?” Minfilia asks, and he supposed his face changes just enough to answer the question for him, a tiny sigh slipping out from between her lips. “I suppose not.”

 

“Which you have my utmost apologies for, my dear,” he says. “I was… a bit lost in thought.”

 

She lifts her head a touch, a hand gliding along her desk as she moves from behind it to stand in front of him. “About?” Her arms fold delicately over her stomach, blue eyes boring into his.

 

He sighs. He weighs the pros and cons of honesty, and caves. “Merely wondering after our woman in Ul’dah, Minfilia. It’s been a while.”

 

She nods in agreement, but the smile on her face is serene. “I have complete faith in Lucina’s capabilities. It is not her first time with Ifrit, after all. Though, the daylight is waning.” She glances towards the window, which had been a brilliant robin’s egg blue when she departed, and is now a dusky orange choked with Mor Dhona’s signature purple clouds. “I trust her to report to us in time, regardless. Mayhap she took a moment to rest.”

 

He stares at her. Are they talking about the same person?

 

“Ah, of course. The woman who staggered into the Waking Sands intoxicated and attended a meeting instead of retrieving an antidote. She is  _absolutely_ , taking a few hours to rest completely on her own volition.”

 

The look Minfilia gives him could cut glass in twain, but she relents with a quiet “You have a point.”

 

“In any respect,” he says. “I suppose we can do naught is wait.” And she nods, but she’s staring at him still, like she’s trying to read him. She doesn’t budge for a while, and all he can do is squint at her while she stares, and stares, and stares, before finally speaking her mind.

 

“Is that all that’s troubling you, Thancred?” She asks him this like she already knows the answer, and knowing her and knowing him, she might, but he’s unable to answer her. The door bursts open then, and Yda tumbles into the solar with the grace of a broken adjudicator.

 

“She’s back,” she says in lieu of a greeting, and Minfilia’s smile is genuine and faintly smug, turning around on a heel to face their companion. He sighs through his nose.

 

“I'm relieved to hear so. Is she approaching the solar, or does she require a moment first?” she says, and he nods in agreement, expecting Yda to answer. Except, she doesn’t. She fidgets, hands wringing, head turning to survey the two of them in a manner that reminds him of a startled antelope.

 

The dread creeps upwards into his throat.

 

Minfilia takes a cautious step forwards, Yda’s name barely leaving her lips before the door opens again, abruptly, pale hands slamming themselves against the door’s frame clutching it like a lifeline. There’s a gasp from Yda, and  _something_ leaves him at the sight of her — a blend of a groan and a sigh.

 

Lucina has indeed returned to them, but with consequences — ash litters her once-black hair, tracks of dried blood caress her cheek. Her arms are red and white and blistered, skin peeling, legs streaked with soot. But it’s her dress that catches his eye — marred with a dark, glistening stain that coats her torso and drips down her hip. She lifts her head. Blood is blooming at the corner of her mouth.

 

“... Ifrit’s dead,” she says, her voice as hollow as blown-out glass, and her knees buckle.

 

He’s moving before he’s even fully aware of it — one moment he sees the quiver in her legs, the next, his arms are around her, kneeling on the stone floor as she lies prone in his grasp. He can feel her shaking, her nails weakly digging into his back as she attempts to hold herself up, still conscious at the very least.

 

“Yda,” Minfilia’s voice rings out from behind him. “Fetch a bowl of water and some hempen cloth. Potions as well, if we have them. I’ll attempt to contact Galli or Y’shtola.” Ah. Yes. Galli’s in Coerthas on business, and Y’shtola is knee deep in Raincatcher Gully, last he knew. Kinoko would also be an option, but communication with her has been silent for an hour — as it tends to be when exploring old temples. Either way, his heart is stuttering in his chest, lips set in a thin line as he shifts her in his arms, lying her down onto his lap.

 

“Twelve…” he breathes out. She looks even worse up close — skin the color of natron, a thin sheen of sweat along her brow. Her eyes are open, barely, half-lidded and threatening to close with every flutter. She manages to turn her head to look at him, a quiet murmur of something he doesn’t catch spilling from bloodied lips. Minfilia is still behind them, murmuring into her linkshell — it appears she at least managed to reach Galli, much to his relief. But he can’t sit idle either, already drawing a dagger from his side and gently pulling the clinging fabric, frowning as Lucina winces and mumbles something again. He makes sure to be cautious as he stabs into the dress, pulling the blade down to make an incision large enough for him to truly see her wound, peeling it away until he’s certain the entirety of it is exposed.

 

He’s used to seeing battle wounds. He’s seen them on people he loved, he’s inflicted them on people he had to overcome. There is nothing different about this one, and yet, the air feels like it’s drained itself from his lungs.

 

It’s a gaping hole in her side, barely smaller than her fist, but the unusual thing about it is the skin around it, and over it. It’s charred, spotted with the same blistering burns that line her arms, bubbles of blood bubbling up and bursting. The wound seems to be closing on its own, which he supposes is one boon, but then he looks at her again, and any relief is gone.

 

“Galli shall arrive anon.” Minfilia is suddenly at his side, moving Lucina just so to place her head in her lap. “I have Tataru lying in wait for her by the aetheryte.”

 

“I have to wonder what in the hells the healers were doing to leave her in such a state…” he mutters, a hand pressing itself against her wound, drawing a shaky groan out of her. Minfilia’s head drops, sighing, the gears likely turning in her head to find a plausible excuse, but Lucina speaks for her, just a word, but it explains everything.

 

“... Dead,” she says. Thancred’s mouth closes.

 

Yda returns then — thank the Gods, dropping to her knees with the bowl of water, already dipping a swatch of cloth into it. Her hands shake as she wrings the excess out, placing it gently on Lucina’s forehead and wincing when she shudders. Thancred’s hand is still over her side, feeling gushes of her blood oozing through his fingers and how hot her skin is under his touch and it makes him  _sick_.

 

_He should have been there. He should have been there. She’d be fine if only he had been there._

 

“Should we move her?” says Yda, looking to Minfilia as she asks. “To a bed, perhaps? That would be more comfortable for her than the floor...” To his surprise, Minfilia turns towards him, eyes expectant for his answer. He glances down at Lucina, mostly to judge if she’s in any condition to be moved.

 

“If… you think that’s…” She took that as a cue to answer, trailing off with a series of coughs that make her seize Thancred’s wrist, face twisted in pain. He ruminates on this briefly — moving her could possibly aggravate the wound, but Galli could more efficiently work if she were in a proper bed, that, and she would likely be moved eventually to rest.

 

“Carefully,” he answers. “The question however, is whether we move her to the infirmary in the plaza, or to our barracks.”

 

“The barracks.” Minfilia’s answer is immediate. “I… fear for her condition if we try to move her such a distance.” The cloth is moved from Lucina’s forehead, given to Yda to hold temporarily. Yda seizes the cloth and the bowl, standing with both and presumably making her way to the barracks, but she stops, whirling around again.

 

“Shouldn’t we take her somewhere more private?”

 

And Yda has a point — the unfortunate side effect of having your headquarters attached to a bar is that word of your exploits spreads like a bonfire through ale-loosened lips. It’s one Minfilia and Alphinaud tend to brush off whenever anyone (Papalymo) brings it up — Alphinaud out of pride, and Minfilia out of a will to not regret — but it can’t be ignored in situations like this. If the news that one of the Scion’s strongest was gravely wounded spilled forth into the public eye, enemies and supposed benefactors alike could swarm upon them like bloodflies to a cadaver. The potency of her black magic is already well-known, and with her lying prone and ultimately defenseless, a massive deterrent to any of those wishing harm has vanished.

 

“But where?” Minfilia snaps him out of his rationalizing (his worrying, but it shan’t be called that). And then Thancred remembers the sparsely used upstairs, a loft for the bar owner that he doesn’t currently reside in. Since no one’s occupying the space, surely, no one would mind if it were used.

 

“Though… that does leave us with the predicament of carrying her past the bar patrons,” he adds after mentioning it, to which Yda simply shrugs.

 

“Technically, she’s already walked past them to enter...”

 

“An excellent point,” Thancred says, to which Lucina expresses her own approval of with a weak thumbs-up.

 

Carrying her is a simple enough task — of slowly tugging her into his arms to lift her into them, shifting his weight to his knees, and then, one leg at a time until he’s standing. She tries to help him, bless her soul, but she’s primarily dead weight, her arms loosely wrapped around his neck. It’s an attempt to help hold herself up, but she’s too weak to do it properly. There’s another twinge of guilt in his chest, heavier as he glances down at her and sees the red along her cheeks, frowning to himself.

 

“Yda? Is there a way we return the cloth to her for a moment?” he asks, sparing another look at the girl who has now all but buried herself into his chest, now suddenly unable or unwilling to meet his eyes.

 

“We’ll likely lose it with all our movement, but…” Gently, she turns, draping it against her neck carefully, the tiniest of smiles of her face. “Though, if I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t think the fever was making her flush so.”

 

Lucina makes a weak whining sound, waving a hand haphazardly in Yda’s direction. Thancred isn’t sure he understands the joke.

 

It’s a quiet, quick affair other than that. Yda leads, with Thancred holding Lucina in his arms, and Minfilia dutifully following, though she eventually overtakes him in order to unlock the door to the upstairs loft, whispering something to Yda as she passes. Thancred’s only aware of the whispered conversation because he hears it; he’s far too busy alternating between trying not to stare, and staring at the woman he’s supporting.

 

He remembers the day he met her, staring down at Nanamo in an attempt to convince her to return. He’d been intrigued — when isn’t he a little intrigued by a person with luscious hair and a lithe figure like that — and then, she had turned around. She stared at him in a way that seared his soul, in a way that made it feel like he was being damned on the spot for every wrong he ever committed. And then she had tipped her head, her expression fading into something softer, curiosity, and the weight had lifted from his chest. It took him a while to accept that she simply has eyes like that — dark, searching, heavy — and even longer to adjust to that gaze being him as often as it was. There’s no fire behind her eyes now, none of their normal shine or sharpness, and when their gazes manage to meet he almost wonders if she can see him.

 

(He fears the moment she stops seeing anything.)

 

A bit of tight maneuvering through the loft is required, as the furniture is placed in a hasty, haphazard way, wincing internally every time Lucina’s grip tightens slightly. She tries yet again to help, shifting herself in his arms to best not run into anything, but by the time they arrive to the bedroom any color that was in her skin has faded to an ashen gray, her breaths leaving her in staggered wheezes. He sets her on the bed as gently as he can, taking a seat beside her and watching as Yda immediately places the cloth on her forehead again, made cold again he assumes by the violent way Lucina shivers on contact.

 

He goes to adjust it once it slips over her eye. Did Yda steal this water from a glacier? It feels like it.

 

The room is silent for a moment. Lucina’s unsteady gaze flutters from the ceiling to their faces. Minfilia bows her head in quiet thought and Yda busies herself with the bowl, fussing over it in various ways, from shifting its position to checking the temperature with a finger. He alternates between observing them and observing Lucina, but looking at either of them for too long makes the guilt crawl up his throat again.

 

The silence is broken by the door opening, and the sounds of two pairs of footsteps — one rushed, one steady. The steadier set makes their way over towards him, growing louder, and Thancred turns to greet them, only to see the top of a head instead of a person.

 

“Galli,” he greets her as amicably as he can, voice still in a chokehold due to his own anxieties. Without another word, he bends down slightly to pick her up (which she obliges to like clockwork by simply lifting her arms), setting her down onto the bed so she can at least access her patient.

 

There’s a frown on her face when she sees Lucina properly, who tries to smile for her, turning her head to look over at Tataru, who lingers by the doorway. “Is Papalymo here? I might require his alchemy for this.”

 

Tataru nods, then regards Minfilia. “There’s also a report from the Twin Adders, my lady. I’m not sure what their answer on the matter was, but I’m assuming it’s in the letter. Do you… want to review it now…?”

 

Minfilia casts a glance around the room, as if asking them if she’s allowed to excuse herself, and it’s Lucina who responds verbally, with a barely audible “Go.” Even saying just that one word seems to have taxed her, as she sinks back into the pillows with her teeth buried in her bottom lip, trying to breathe in a rhythm that she’s too shaky to manage. He tries to soothe her, placing a hand over hers, and she immediately twists her own around to grasp it as best she can.

 

After one last glance, and a whispered word to Galli, Minfilia departs, a sickened-looking Tataru in tow. Yda continues to hover as Galli looks over Lucina’s wound, little hands gently examining before reaching for her cane, fingers wrapping around it tight as she closes her eyes and mumbles words in a language he can’t quite grasp — Eorzean, but not quite. He expects the incantation to be a Cure spell, or some sort of healing, watching the wound to see if it would begin to properly close, but it doesn’t. Curious, he glances up, just in time to see her head loll to the side, eyes falling shut as her hand goes limp in his grasp.

 

A sudden chill plagues him.

 

“Lucina?” His other hand goes to her cheek, then her neck, going to lift her head in hopes that would stir her back to consciousness. His heart is throbbing.  _Please, don’t leave, I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry._ “Lucy —“ But a hand to his wrist stops him, and a soft voice rises, almost in a whisper.

 

“Thannie… it’s alright,” Galli says. “I cast Repose on her. She's merely asleep.” She looks stricken, holding onto him carefully, and it isn’t until he exhales and his breath quivers that he realizes how he must look. He swallows, leaning back, a hand going over his face as he gulps in air. Twelve help him. He’s losing control of himself.

 

There’s two hands on his shoulders, and someone’s chin resting on the crown of his head — Yda, he presumes, whose hands eventually drift to rub along his arms. He lets her, trying to focus on that and not on the conjured thought of Lucina’s empty eyes as she lies on her back in The Bowels, alone, because his idiocy prevented him from being there with her. That she _could_ have returned them wrapped in a blood-stained blanket, or worse, not returned at all.

 

_Gods, I’m so sorry._

 

“I find myself surprised she remained conscious for so long… She lost quite a bit of blood…” Galli muses, casting something else that doesn’t appear to close the wound either, then realigning her cane over Lucina’s side with a whispered prayer to Hydaelyn, a tradition of hers to usher good luck and vitality to whomever she’s healing. Out of the three, Galli’s connection to Hydaelyn is undeniably the strongest, but there are no qualms about the Mother loving all three of her daughters.

 

Remembering this (along with seeing the surefire light of a Cure spell) soothes him, if only slightly.

 

“I was surprised too,” Yda says. “I certainly would have collapsed by the front door, let alone made it into the solar.”

 

“At the very least, she’s resting now. I’ll remain with her 'til dawn breaks in case of infection or any other injuries surface but… And there’s still the burns. Given the severity of them, it'll require some time before they're healed.” Galli sighs, twisting herself around until she’s looking directly at Thancred. “Thannie?” Galli asks. “Are you okay?”

 

Immediately, he plasters a smile on his face and nods his head once, with a simple, terse “I’m well.” He can see Galli’s gaze flick up to meet Yda’s, however, and her brows furrow, her hand already making its way back onto his.

 

Yda huffs a little under her breath, seating herself directly on Thancred’s legs, arms folded across her chest. “No, you’re not,” she says definitively, a finger gently jabbing at his shoulder. “We're just as concerned about her welfare — I assure you, I'm undeniably nervous — but you’re taking this particularly hard. You can’t worry yourself sick, you know.”

 

Yes. He knows. He knows and it  _kills_ him. It feels as if he can’t do anything, that he’s too fragile and too weakened and too much a burden to displace any of the strife he’s brought in his wake. And he only brings more, it seems, his eyes falling on the sleeping woman at his side, her hand still in his. He releases her then, about to drop his empty hand into his lap, but Galli slides her own into the space Lucina left behind, significantly smaller, but just as warm.

 

“She’ll be well soon,” Galli says, nodding twice to reassure him. “Take a moment to relax, Thancred. If anything changes with her, you'll be the first to know.” She turns back briefly to Lucina, placing a hand on her forehead with a frown. “… She’s so warm…”

 

“The wound isn’t festering, is it?” he asks, already scrambling to recall the ingredients needed to heal a septic wound. It was… some… sort of powder. Powdered bones? Twelve, Papalymo would know better than he.

 

“Not that I'm aware of. My Esuna cast did something, but I’m not quite sure as to what. And Esuna has no effect on sepsis either way, I’m afraid.”

 

He does recall her mentioning something to that effect once before, but, he’s not exactly the magical sort. The mechanics of it tend to elude him even at the best of times.

 

“It… did something?” Thancred asks, as he saw nothing. Galli nods, clasping her hands together as she tucks her legs underneath her, so perfectly poised that she could be mistaken for a doll.

 

“Esuna removes any ailments that are either natural, like from the kin around us, or are born from aether-based magicks. Anything that’s from an alternative kind of magic, Esuna cannot remove, unfortunately, but it definitely removed something. It kind of goes,  _click!_ when it finds an ailment and cures it, and I felt the spell connect with her. So, whatever ailment was plaguing her was hopefully and permanently expunged.”

 

“The spell is brighter when it lands upon something,” Yda remarks, then shrugs. “I've watched Shtola cast it enough to tell the difference now.” If Thancred were a bit more on his game, he’d add a remark about that, but the opportunity glosses over him with no attempt to seize it.

 

“What's important is that the danger has passed,” Galli says. “In days' time, she'll be as hale as ever. I’ll still ask Papalymo what I can do to soothe her fever, it’s… a little too high to just ignore...” She casts another worried glance over, squaring her shoulders before turning to face her entirely. “Everyone, go get some rest. I’ll take it from here.” She sounds so confident that the tension in Thancred’s shoulders melts just slightly, the fog of exhaustion that had lingered barely out of notice crawling slowly along his mind, leaving thick, hazy cobwebs in its wake.

 

Yda finally stands, arms stretched above her head, whirling around only to place a kiss to Lucina’s cheek, whispering well-wishes before she bounds off, the normal spring to her step muted.

 

It takes him a moment to follow suit, his legs heavy and rooted, brain all but demanding for him to stay but, there’s nothing more he can contribute. She isn’t awake to be comforted, and other than being able to stitch simple wounds and prepare antidotes, he’s no medic. It would be useless of him to linger, and yet, and  _yet_ …

 

Common sense wins eventually. He smooths down a few stray hairs on Galli’s head, bids Lucina a final glance, eyes trailing over her sleeping form one last time before he closes the door behind him.

 

He falls asleep when the moon is dipping into the horizon and he’s up again before dawn, dreaming of stone floors drenched in searing blood.

•••

Regardless of how little he slept, he’s in the solar, as Minfilia leaves with Y’shtola to negotiate with Merlwyb and there’s plenty of information and paperwork to be overlooked in her absence. Normally, he wouldn’t settle himself into doing her work, but someone must, and no one’s stepped up to claim it. And perhaps, there’s an ulterior motive, of finding busywork to keep himself occupied so he thinks less of Lucina.

 

At least she’s resting well, so Galli’s informed him. She awoke in a panic once and had to be calmed, but she called it nothing more than a lingering thread of distress. He’s heard rumors that Lucina is a terribly deep sleeper, prone to night terrors that leave her screaming, but it’s not something he’s ever experienced himself. (He’s also, a terribly deep sleeper. Shtola likes to tell him that a primal could awaken beside him and he would hear none of it.)

 

He pauses his thoughts for the moment, however, pushing his reading glasses back further along the bridge of his nose to better squint slightly at the notes before him. He’s not sure who has the more difficult handwriting to read — Papalymo or Alisaie — and he doesn’t get the chance to mull it over, something just at the top of his vision distracts him into looking up, spying the dark hair of someone he knows should be in bed.

 

“You do realize that I’m contractually obligated to inform Y’shtola when one of her patients tries to slip by me, yes?” Never mind the fact that Galli was the one who had taken care of her, but Y’shtola is the more intimidating out of their three healers. Yet Lucina freezes in the doorway regardless, her hands wrapped around a covered basket, scanning the room for others before she speaks, her gaze directed at the floor instead of at him.

 

“... I’ve an errand to run,” she says quietly. She offers no more than that, and Thancred sighs through his nose, setting down the notes in his hand to regard her with no distractions.

 

“Would you like me to run it for you? I’m involved in nothing that can’t be interrupted,” he offers.

 

Almost immediately, and predictably, she shakes her head, hands clenching the basket just a bit tighter. “No. This is… something I have to… I have to attend to this… “ She stops, lifting her head if only briefly. "You wouldn’t, happen to know of the reports on Ifrit’s return, would you?”

 

Thancred gestures aimlessly at the pile scattered on the desk before him. “It’s, likely in here somewhere. I doubt anything more was added to it, considering our slight bout of chaos from the evening prior, but —“ He sifts through one of the smaller stacks, chancing upon it by some stroke of luck before presenting it over the desk with a flourish for her to take. “There you are. Did you have a mind to finish it yourself?”

 

She steps forward to retrieve it, but at a slow, faltering pace, the basket set carefully onto the desk before she takes the report. Immediately, she sets about to reading it, answering after a moment’s time.

 

“It may be best if I…” she murmurs, voice trailing off to nothing. He glances up then, and stumbles across the realization that her shirt is half-buttoned. For someone normally as buttoned up as she is, the look is refreshingly different… and enticing.

 

Then again, the longer he looks, the more he finds wrong. He hadn’t wholly expected the pallor to leave her skin so soon, but it remains, jarringly juxtapositioned with the odd flush along her neck and cheeks. Her eyes, trained onto the page, are rimmed in dark circles, and the faint light within them seems to still be dull. Perhaps he was overestimating the speed of her recovery, but she barely looks any different from when she lay corpse-like in his arms (and Lucina tends to already resemble something undead if she hasn’t gotten enough sleep, which is more often than not).

 

“Lucina? Are you sure you’re well?” he asks, keeping his eyes deliberately on her face. She looks almost startled by the question, the paper slipping from her hand onto the desk again.

 

“I — Yes? I… I know it’s irresponsible of me to leave but, I’d rather not — wait longer than I have to…” She gives him a fleeting smile, taking up the basket she’d left on the table, and the impulse seizes him to stop her. His hand comes down on the rim of the basket, upsetting the sheet placed over it, revealing the contents to be…

 

“Muffins?”

 

Lucina’s cheeks flush even darker, raking her fingers through her hair. “They’re for — they’re for the guild the healers were from. I can't return their lost to them, but… I can at least apologize for my mistakes…” She trails off, looking away from him, and suddenly he understands.

 

“We were dealt an abrupt and barely winnable hand,” he says softly. “To achieve victory at all was a success, and to achieve it with only two adventurers lost is nothing short of a miracle.” All he can do is pray his words do not ring hollow with her, even if yesterday’s reassurances have yet to sink in with him. Galli had stopped by before she retired for the night to check up on him, crawling up onto his lap and wrapping her arms around his middle in a hug before she left. That was Galli, soft and supportive and gentle, and he almost wishes she were here to offer the sincerity he feels he may be lacking. (“Thancred” and “tact” were two words that almost never appeared within the same sentence.)

 

“Tell that to them...” She remains turned away from him, most of her face obscured by her hair, until she raises a hand to comb her fingers through it, the fleeting glimpse the movement brings all he needs for the alarm bells to ring. Her expression is pained — nothing he didn’t expected given the subject matter, but there’s a weakness tainting her voice. It remains even when she speaks again, “... I shouldn’t linger any more than I already have.”

 

“And you’re certain you can manage the excursion alone?” he asks. He’s not certain he believes it, even as she nods.

 

“It’s best if I speak to them…” She’s interrupted by the basket slipping from her hands, contents spilling onto the floor, heaving out a little sigh of frustration as she kneels down to retrieve them. He thinks nothing of it, until he hears a stifled gasp.

 

He’s around the desk before he’s even fully processed the sound.

 

She’s sitting on the floor, nails digging into her thighs, as if she’s trying not to place her hands elsewhere. Her gaze is very much locked to the ground, hair hiding any glimpse he can get of her face, but that, to him, is inconsequential. It’s more imperative to get her standing again, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her back to her feet. He expects her to be unsteady, to give her a moment once they’ve risen in order for her to regain her balance.

 

He doesn’t expect her to cringe so violently at his touch, her nails now finding purchase in his arms.

 

The two of them almost crumble back to the floor in a heap, her hand at her side right over where her wound was. She takes a few gasping breaths, suddenly straightening herself back up and shaking her head just slightly, as if she’s attempting to clear it, yet doesn’t want to risk disorienting herself.

 

“I’m fine…” It sounds fragile. He shushes her quietly, pressing his hand against her forehead, unsurprised when he finds her warm, but surprised at just how warm she is. It makes his heart sink slowly into his stomach, withdrawing his hand again, words stuck in his throat for a moment too long.

 

“A Thalanan summer is cold compared to you, dove,” he says, but that’s all he manages to tell her. Her eyelids fluttering halfway through his sentence should have been a warning, but by the time he thinks to ask if she’s alright, she’s already swooned.

 

She’s fortunately easy to catch, and even easier to lower onto the ground properly, frantic hands at her face as he tries to stir her, pulse already starting up its haphazard stammering from yesterday.  _No. No, you were supposed to be alright. Seven hells, Galli told me you were supposed to be alright._

 

“Lucina?” he calls to her. The silence is defeating. He knows she’s breathing, noticeable by the way her chest heaves, but she looks like the woman of his dreams — deathly pale and burning, one amongst all of the specters he’s left in his wake. He attempts to stir her again. “Twelve, I — Lucy, please.” The chill that runs down his spine is violent, as if Halone herself had ran her lance through him. His hands are shaking. This can’t be happening. She can’t be _dying_  because of him. Through his panic, a thought strikes him — a bout of common sense, one hand rising towards his ear to activate his linkshell to contact Tataru. If anyone would be here in the Rising Stones, it would be her. And true to his predictions, she picks up on the second ring.

 

“Hello Thancred!” Tataru sounds far too chipper. “Do you need something from me?” He grits his teeth, shifting himself to place Lucina’s head on his lap, trying to remember the procedures exactly for assisting an unconscious person while taking in as slow of a breath as he can to steady himself.

 

“I’m in need of a chiurgeon,” he says, introductions be damned. “Either a chiurgeon or one of our healers, to the solar, as soon as possible. I loathe to beg, but I must.” A hand goes to Lucina’s forehead again, only able to place his palm there for so long before the heat radiating from her renders it uncomfortable.

 

“I — I’m sending Kinoko to you right away,” she says, and the line dies swiftly after. Desperation starts to claw at his chest, the feeling that  _he cannot wait_ , and it spurs him, fingers fumbling for the buttons on her shirt to open it. While he knows it’s undignified for her and a boorish act for him, he also knows it best to rule out the most likely suspect of her sudden turn. He at least apologizes to her — “Forgive me for this” — even if she isn’t awake to receive it.

 

The shirt is barely away from where the wound lies before the question answers itself.

 

While it had been healed, closed up by Galli’s magic, the skin around it was a scarlet red, dotted with the same patches of white he had seen along her arms yesterday. More disturbing are the veins, visible through her skin, no longer a cornflower blue but instead a stark shade of black clustered around the scarring in a sickening spiral.

 

He swallows thickly, twice. He feels a touch faint himself.

 

The door opens then, footsteps resounding, the feeling of a hand on his shoulder. A quiet swear rises from behind him, and not a moment later a familiar woman clad in her usual robes is kneeling on the floor beside them, hands outstretched to take Lucina’s shirt in them and abruptly pausing.

 

“What, in the seven hells, is  _that_.”

 

He doesn’t need to guess what she’s referring to.

 

“I haven’t the slightest — Whatever are you doing?” He stops, watching Kinoko place a hand on the injury directly and press down on it, eliciting a shudder from Lucina. At first, he goes to speak, questioning her methods, but she seizes his wrist with a sudden, shocking velocity, moving his hand in the exact spot hers once lay.

 

“Push down on it. Tell me if you feel the same thing I do.” He does so, cautiously, wincing internally as Lucina arches in his lap, almost expecting to feel nothing… but he does. Something solid, like the top of a rod of sorts, just underneath his touch. He glances up at Kinoko in utter confusion, finding that underneath her hood, she seems just as baffled.

 

“It grows hotter to the touch as you press down on it…” Thancred noted, a hand coming up to stroke his chin in thought. “I — I can’t determine what that could be, unless — there should a sheet of paper, just on the desk, detailing our latest encounter with Ifrit, perhaps —?” Kinoko is already reaching forward to seize the paper, shoving it into his hand before drawing forth her codex and its attached quill, scrawling out some incantation or formula to summon forth her fairy companion. Eos, so it’s named, flutters from the aether in a burst of light, and almost immediately descends to Lucina’s side, drawn to her. He’s uncertain what it’s doing, but he hasn’t the time to focus on it, forcibly redirecting his focus to the report he’s holding.

 

“So. What, happened, exactly? I’m guessing I missed something while the Maelstrom had me crawling through Qarn _twice_.” She only sounds slightly bitter. Thancred buries himself in reading long enough to not feel so hollow when he goes to answer, to not instinctively say he’s sorry.

 

He doesn’t get the chance to. There’s a soft moan from the woman sprawled across his legs, and the paper’s set aside in an instant to cradle her head as best he can, watching with weak relief as her eyes slowly open again, glassy gaze dancing across his face before finally meeting his own.

 

She looks, somehow, worse than she did before her consciousness failed her — even the flush from her fever is gone, leaving her paler than snow, skin burning when it meets contact with his own. Her hair’s soaked, clinging to her cheeks even as he peels it away carefully with his fingers, dark eyelids threatening to close again with her every breath.

 

He wishes he could look away, just so the image isn’t burned into his memory, but the smoke curls around the brand it’s left and he knows, he knows long before it would attempt to try, that this will plague his nightmares for months, backed by an echoing chorus of  _this is your fault, this is your fault, this is your fault._

 

“Sorry to interrupt,” Kinoko says in a voice that makes it sound like she isn’t apologetic in the slightest. To her, it appears he was transfixed. “But, the report? Maybe that’ll answer this.” A mere moment later, she’s holding up a hand, as if to stop him before he’s even began. “Oh, hold a moment. You’re awake, so — tell me Lulu, do you remember what exactly impaled you?”

 

Lucina’s voice is threadbare, eyes squeezed shut as she tries to recall. “I… Ifrit, seized one of his nails… and lunged at me… it — ran through my side and, he —“ Her head starts to loll again, and Thancred begins to tap her cheek repeatedly until she wakes. “He — rushed towards the astrologian and… they were a mangled mess when I, managed to stand… too far gone…” Her breath hitches, and though he’s half certain he imagined it, he thinks he sees a single tear slide down her cheek. “I — tried to reach the white mage but I —“

 

“You did well.” Thancred cuts her off before she can say any more, cupping her cheek with a hand. She winces, then groans, raising a hand as if she means to touch her head, but it falls limp against her stomach, pain etched into her face. It’s concerning enough on its own, her name almost off his lips, but barely a second later, Kinoko swears softly, and when his head lifts to look at her he finds her hunched over, fingers tangled in her hair.

 

 _Ah._ While odd if it happened to any other two people, Kinoko and Lucina both being stricken by headaches simultaneously is only indicative of one thing — the Echo, likely a shared vision as it seems. There’s nothing he can truly do to help either of them until the vision ends, so he cradles Lucina gently to his chest, turning his eyes towards the ceiling. He can’t look at her. He can’t. Thanalan is  _his_ territory and Ifrit is  _his_ primal and all of this was  _his_ responsibility and these are the consequences when he can’t attend to it.

 

He wounds everything he touches. He wounds everything he fails to touch. Jacke was right.

 

_“You can’t wash the blood off your hands when it’s steeped into your skin, Thannie boy.”_

 

He’s drawn out of the past, out of a darkened bar and Jackie’s white, wicked grin, by a gasp, by Kinoko suddenly jolting upright with a sickened look on her face. Weakly, Lucina stirs back to consciousness, but he’s only aware of this because he feels it, not because he sees it.

 

Kinoko wilts, shoulders slumping, waving a hand to dismiss the fairy Thancred had long since forgotten about. “We’re going to need more than magic for this. You wouldn’t have to know a few chiurgeons amongst all your lovers, would you?”

 

It takes him a moment to realize she’s addressing him. “There’s an infirmary within the plaza — I’m certain I can… why?” She stares at him, blue eyes sharp and brimmed with pity, and it makes his stomach drop.

 

“It’s the nail she mentioned. It broke.” She leans forward, jamming her hand against Lucina’s side, ignoring the strangled yell she lets out, her shaking hands pawing at Thancred’s arms. “That’s what  _this_ is, Ifrit stabbed her with the infernal nail, but when he charged at the healer, he lay his weight against it and it snapped, meaning —“

 

“It’s still inside her,” he says hollowly. “... And we healed the wound closed.”

 

There’s a heavy silence, broken up only by Lucina’s staggered gulps of air, his mind reeling — no wonder she has a raging fever, no  _wonder_ her veins look like they’ve been charred. She was burning from the inside out from the moment she entered the solar and  _they had sealed the nail inside her_.

 

This could not get any worse. It couldn’t. It can’t. It can’t.

 

His spiral’s cut short by hands fumbling at his belt, withdrawing one of his daggers from its sheath, managing to grab the handle to hold it in place from being plunged down. It’s almost disturbing the lack of effort he has to put forth to stop her, someone who has previously overtaken him and could again — (though, he reminds himself, it wasn’t  _him_ she had defeated) — and the dagger’s back in his possession with little more than a sharp tug.

 

“Can I ask what —“ He doesn’t finish. For he looks at Lucina and sees the ferocity of her determination within her eyes, rimmed with the dark circles that have yet to fade, and goosebumps burst along his skin.

 

“I can — I can cut it out myself,” Lucina says, sentence ended abruptly by a gasp of pain, and Kinoko makes a sound that reminds him of a ziz’s cry. Thancred merely sighs, wrapping his arms around her tighter as he rises with them both, trying to still be cautious about jostling her.

 

“No offense to your skills in impromptu surgery,” he says, “But, this may be best left to people who can remain conscious throughout the procedure.” As if to prove his point, she starts to slacken in his grip, nestling against him without a response, her entire form wracked with shivers. With how increasingly difficult it grows to keep her awake, he knows they’ll lose her if he doesn’t move. He cares not if this news goes public any longer.

 

He pries open the door to the solar with his foot and walks.

 

It is one of the longest, and quickest walks in his life. He remembers specific obstacles — moving around a crowd of newer recruits talking in the hallway. Spying Yda in the corner of his eye as he makes his way through The Seventh Heaven. Staring just above Kinoko’s head as she takes the lead, rolling through crowds like a tidal wave. And yet, it feels as if he blinked, and suddenly, Lucina’s being pried out of his arms by chiurgeons. He blinks again and Kinoko’s standing before him, waving her hand in front of his face, a scowl on her own.

 

“By the Dawn. Welcome back, Thancred,” she says in a tone tinged with acidic exasperation. “I’d ask if you heard me but I’m going to take your dead-eyed fish stare as a no.”

 

He smiles wryly. “You’d be right in doing so,” he says.

 

“They’re operating now. It should be easy to remove, so they say, but that isn’t their primary concern.” Instinctively, the biting remark of  _what else is there to be concerned about_ rises in his throat, but it dies when the answer flits across his thoughts.

 

“... Their concern is the damage it’s caused.”

 

Kinoko nods once, grimly, and he swallows back a wave of nausea. Again. And again.

 

“It isn’t something they can determine until the nail’s removed, however. As long as it remains, it’s only adding to whatever has already been — Thancred _._ ” He faintly registers her retrieving her codex, scrawling something down on the well-marked pages, pale blue magic swirling around him for the briefest of moments. Whatever was cast, it changes nothing, and he tilts his head in confusion at what she was trying to accomplish.

 

“You were turning green on me, Thancred,” Kinoko continues, bringing a hand down onto his shoulder and forcing him into a nearby chair. He complies, breathing through his nose. He had felt ill, the guilt and exhaustion building to a crescendo and threatening to expel itself, so while his nausea has yet to vanish, he’s at least grateful she cared enough to try.

 

He looks up at her, at the wisps of blonde hair escaping her hood, at the faint scale-like scarring he can see along her cheek. She stares back, dropping a hand to her side with a sigh. “Go rest. I’ll stay with her. Dusk be damned that I want to seem busy so I’m not called upon to explore the Darkhold next.” He laughs, though it’s strained, rising from the chair to make his way back to the Stones.

 

Yda accosts him almost immediately when he pushes open the heavy wooden door to the bar and he tells her, sinking into the nearest available chair to do so. He pours as many details into it as he can, trusting her to relay the information to the others. Normally, it’s something he would do personally, but he hasn’t the energy to face all of them, especially not Galli, who he knows would be utterly devastated by the knowledge of what was truly wrong with her. He himself is overwhelmed by it all, only able to give Yda a weak parting smile as he rises again, wandering upstairs into the loft to wait for… anything.

 

His feet carry him into the bedroom, eyes immediately falling upon the bed, sheets stripped to be cleaned of the blood that stained them. Thoughts begin swimming in his mind — _he should have touched her side then, he should have told them to inquire more about her fever, he should have —_ but he didn’t. Logic can explain away most of these —  _why would he cause her additional pain by touching her wound? why wouldn’t he focus on preventing her from bleeding out first? —_  but they spiral, a whirlwind that thrums everywhere from his head to his veins, and he sinks into one of the armchairs beside the empty bed, whipping his reading glasses off his face, fingers pulling at the top buttons of his shirt. He slumps there, the only sounds he hears for a long time being the heavy inhales and exhales of his own breathing.

 

He takes this so personally because in a sense, Lucina is his. She had crossed his path first, that long ago underneath the rippling heat and gnarled tree roots. He was the one who watched her grow to weave fire and ice with a skill that left him awestruck in the streets of Ul’dah. He was the one who showed her around the Waking Sands, who was to be the one to guide her through her first primal encounter until everything, utterly everything fell apart. Lucina has been under his jurisdiction since their eyes locked and to fail her so drastically, over, and over, and over again…

 

It’s disgusting. It disgusts him. He’s supposed to be a far better mentor than this. She’s surpassed him in almost every way, it seems, and he wonders vaguely why she even continues to bother with him if he continues to be such a bane to her progression.

 

The thought circles his head for hours. Like a vulture, waiting.

•••

He doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but he does, waking as dawn breaks again with a low groan, bones popping as he stretches. A hand comes up to rub at his eyes, blinking in the low light, waiting for the eventual adjustment to the darkness.

 

It’s because of this that he’s startled by something shifting the bed beside him — or rather, someone, immediately pulling the chair closer to the bedside to investigate.

 

With a lightened heart, he realizes it’s her — Lucina lies there, asleep, further confirmed by the way she doesn’t stir when he reaches out to touch her face. To his relief, her finds that her skin is damp, but cool; her fever has broken, seemingly some time within the night, the cloth applied to her forehead long since gone warm.

 

The solace he gains from seeing her — not well, but at least better — is palpable. The dissipation of her fever implies that the nail has been removed, though he’s reluctant to test it. He reclines back in the chair for the briefest of moments just to release a contented sigh, immediately surging forward again to check over her once more. It’s then she stirs, face tipping into his open hand, eyes blinking open with the most clarity in them that he’s seen since she left them for the aetheryte.

 

“Lucina,” he says, a breathless laugh bubbling out of him. “Finished with your impromptu nap, are we?” It takes her a moment to recall, but exasperation flits across her face with a quick roll of her eyes.

 

“Mm… at least you caught me this time,” she says. He hadn’t even realized she was unconscious that first time, far too preoccupied with the presence of the voidsent and with ensuring the sultana’s safety. By the time he turned to find her on the ground, she was already rising to her feet again. She was surprisingly resilient for someone who seemed so frail.

 

(Which is exactly why this incident was so horrific to witness, for him at least.)

 

“I’ve become far quicker on the draw, or so I would like to think,” he says, simply grateful he gets to banter with her so amicably like this. She’s receptive, albeit exhausted, a tired smile upon her lips as she closes her eyes again. The sight of her makes an apology rush forward, just on the tip of his tongue, already taking her wrist in his hands, but he’s interrupted before a single word can be voiced.

 

“Thancred?” she murmurs as he begins to rise, uncertain whether he should stay or whether to distance himself, but her voice gives him pause, deciding to simply settle back into the chair to face her again.

 

“Yes?” he prompts, expecting her to ask a question. Answers are at the ready even if her inquiry has yet to be spoken — “I’m well”; “You’ll be alright”; “This is nothing you need to guilt yourself over”, as ironic as the last one seems.

 

But she doesn’t say anything. Her hands rise from the bed to cup the sides of his face, slowly pulling him closer to her until he’s leaning over her, inches away from her. She pauses with him there for a moment, and he almost wants to ask her again, but she tips her head up, arching off the bed slightly to press a quick, chaste kiss to his forehead, just above his eyebrow, releasing him almost immediately after.

 

He pulls back, a little stunned. “Thank you,” he says.

 

She offers a strained, embarrassed smile as a response, pink suddenly blooming along her cheeks. “No… I, I'm certain I should be thanking you, actually…” she sighs, shifting, a wince marring the smile she wore, and immediately his hands are on her shoulders, settling her against the pillows.

 

“You needn’t. What sort of mentor would I be if I wasn’t there for you?” he says, a tiny huff of a laugh leaving him when she raises a hand to try and hide her yawn. “And sparse when you need your rest.” He is all too familiar of the plaguing exhaustion that clings to an injured person, faintly remembering the haze he danced in and out of for days after the Praetorium. It is all he remembers of the Praetorium, and he begs the Twelve to grant him the lenience to leave it lying, to have the fog remain ever-present over that part of his life.

 

“I’ll return for you.” It’s a promise that’s easy to make, definitively rising from his chair. “I should probably get a touch of proper rest myself — Gods, is that chair unforgiving…” He’s grumbling to himself, hands on his sides and thumbs at the small of his back as he stretches, raising his arms then above his head with another groan. “But for now, Lucina…” he says a farewell, and then stops. She’s said nothing, and a simple glance at her reveals why — in an instant, sleep has crept up and claimed her again. He strides out of the room, a hand pausing on the door frame to grant him a final glance behind him. He closes the door, and the moment it clicks closed behind him he feels as if he can breathe again.

•••

The Twelve defy his plea. As he sleeps, he remembers everything — including all he willed himself to forget.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to yell at me/listen to me yell about... well a lot of things, I'm over here on Twitter at @vashiane. 
> 
> (And if that ending seems like it's about to lead into something else, well. You're damn right.)


End file.
